Abstract : The symposium on Recent Developments in Elasticity was held at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore on June 12-15, 1996 in conjunction with the 1996 ASME Mechanics and Materials Conference. The symposium had the twin purpose of honoring Jerald L. Ericksen and reviewing the field to which he has contributed immensely. The symposium was organized by Professor Millard F. Beatty of the University of Nebraska- Lincoln and Professor R. C. Batra of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In response to the Call for Papers published in various journals and personal invitations 70 abstracts were received. These were reviewed and 60 accepted abstracts were organized into ten sessions. Thirty-nine manuscripts were received for publication in the volume "Contemporary Research in the Mechanics and Mathematics of Materials". These were edited, and grouped into the following sections: Distinguished paper, Biomechanics, Continuum Mechanics, Finite Elasticity, Liquid Crystals, Phase Transformations, Porous Materials, Thermoeleasticity, Topics in Linear Elasticity. The book edited by R. C. Batra and M. F. Beatty will be published by the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering, Barcelona, Spain by the end of 1996.